Living with diabetes is hard. It's easy to get discouraged, frustrated, and burned out. Here's an author that understands the emotional rollercoaster and gives you the tools you need to keep from being overwhelmed, addressing such issues as dealing with friends and family, and how you can better handle the stress for better health. Written with compassion and a sprinkle of humor.

This review is from: Diabetes Burnout: What to Do When You Can’t Take It Anymore (Paperback)

When I picked up Diabetes Burnout, I was truly amazed. Dr. Polonsky understands that there are “barriers to self-care,” real life problems and situations that get in the way of doing what’s best for our bodies.

He knows that people make a cost/benefit analysis when it comes to self-care. If the behavior is too hard or too unpleasant, and the rewards don’t seem worth it, we’re not going to consistently exercise, check sugars, or eat what we’re supposed to.

This problem is not just true for people with diabetes. It applies to anyone with chronic illness, or really, to anybody at all. I knew about this from living with multiple sclerosis, and I wrote about it in my book. But I didn’t think anybody else had developed these ideas. I was sure Dr. Polonsky must have some kind of chronic condition himself, because he knows what it’s like. But he doesn’t have an illness. He’s just very insightful.

I really like the humor in this book. I know some reviewers accuse him of being “cutesy” or Disneyfying diabetes, but I think being able to laugh at your situation helps, even when it’s really painful. His description of “werewolf eating” and “Diabetes police” are highly evocative — they get the point across. I don’t think he’s talking down to anyone — he has compassion for people’s struggles and wants us to feel better.

It’s true that Diabetes Burnout does not cite its sources very well and doesn’t contain a lot of specific info on diets or other self-care practices. But that’s not its purpose. He is giving tools for identifying and overcoming our barriers — social, practical, psychological or economic. This is important — some of those barriers may have been with us for decades, and overcoming them can change not just diabetes management, but also entire lives.

He also inspires by telling stories of real people he has worked with, who have made great strides in difficult circumstances. It’s entertaining, inspiring and educational (just like my book . What more do you want?

David Spero RN, author of The Art of Getting Well: Maximizing Health When You Have a Chronic Illness (Hunter House 2002) and the upcoming Politics of Diabetes: Social Causes, Costs and Cures of an Epidemic (2005). [...]

This review is from: Diabetes Burnout: What to Do When You Can’t Take It Anymore (Paperback)

I’m a diabetic and have been for 4 years. Living with diabetes later on in my life is living in a nightmare of having the feelings of “I’ve had enough”…….BURNOUT.

On recommendation I bought this book with the thought “another book about facts and figures and how the perfect diabetic should rule his/her life”.

On the first pages it goes straight into stories of real people who are going through what I’m going through “thank goodness I’m not the only one”. At this point in my nightmare I wasn’t looking for strategies on how to deal with this, only to know that diabetics who were in the same situation felt an dealt with it the same as me.

In this book there are sections which have questionnaires to make you really think about how you feel and think about your diabetes. These sections are labelled so you can tell which are relevant to you, so you don’t have to read from beginning to end like other books and still feel none the wiser.

I enjoyed the way Polonsky uses humorous names like diabetic police, werewolf syndrome and sugar fairy. At last situations that made me angry and frustrated now make me chuckle to myself and deal with it in a calmer manner.

I would recommend this book to anyone and wish I had read it the beginning of my diabetes which would have helped me like it has helped me now.

Watch and listen as Dr. Walter K. Crooks gives answers about the devastating condition known as Peripheral Neuropathy. http://NoNeuropathyHouston.com Learn as he talks about the different… Video Rating: 4 / 5

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